“B/OLD: Aging in our city-Vieillir dans notre ville”

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By Bipasha Sultana

Thinking about age-friendly cities across communities

Put forth by Concordia’s ACT (Ageing, Communication, Technology) and engAGE, the Centre for Research on Aging, B/OLD is a trilingual (English, French, LSQ) event series that is open to the public, offering a multitude of thought-provoking events. These include panels and keynotes, creative workshops and activities, as well as art exhibitions and kiosks, some of which will be held in Concordia’s newly launched 4th Space.

One of the primary aims of this event lies in forging intersectoral connections between academic researchers, community groups, policy makers and local citizens. This is reflected in panels featuring an eclectic list of speakers, including a discussion between community leaders and city politicians, titled “What is an age friendly city?”

Kim Sawchuk, director of ACT and professor in the Department of Communication Studies, points out: “Our goal is to bring community groups, decisions makers, researchers, activists and citizens into conversation with one another. We hope that B/OLD is the start of a conversation.”

B/OLD also aims to bridge the age-segregation that has falsely come to define certain spaces, particularly campus spaces often occupied by – but by no means restricted to – young adult students.

Provoking conversations through fun activities

In an effort to disrupt the age-specific homogeneity of campus spaces, creative workshops and activities offered during B/OLD are tailored to all age groups, with a keen focus on issues unique to the older adult population. For instance, a Graffiti Workshop invites participants to engage in an intergenerational artistic collaboration to address the question of “who is allowed to leave their mark on the city?”

Visitors can also look forward to a much-anticipated “Escape Room on Elder Abuse”. Escape rooms are live-action, collaborative games that ask players to search for clues in order to solve physical and mental puzzles as they move through a room. Solving the puzzles leads players to exit the room and win the game. B/OLD’s escape room was designed to offer an accessible and engaging way for players to identify clues of abuse commonly experienced by vulnerable older adults, with the end goal of recognizing and symbolically “escaping” the game’s cycle of abuse.

Exploring a sensitive topic like elder abuse through an Escape Room helps participants engage in active, hands-on learning to recognize the subtleties of elder abuse.

According to Shannon Hebblewaite, director of engAGE and associate professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences, “B/OLD is a collaborative effort to its core. We are pleased to create opportunities to exchange knowledge and learn from one another. By bringing together older adults, researchers, and policy makers to share their perspectives on aging in the city, we expect some lively conversations that will help ground research and practice in a better understanding of older people themselves.”

B/OLD: Aging in our city, is open to the public and will be taking place on May 16th and 17th throughout the SGW campus and in the 4th Space. You can find out more about the event’s programming on the B/OLD website.

CREATIVE METHODS IN AGEING STUDIES RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM: CALL FOR PAPERS

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Centre for Women, Ageing, and Media is proud to announce its’ Creative Methods in Ageing Studies Research Symposium, which will take place on Wednesday, the 24th of July at the University of Gloucestershire. The call for papers is now open, the deadline to submit is April 30th, 2019.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers addressing an aspect of the symposium theme: “Creative Research Methods in Ageing Studies.” Proposals may address any of the following methodological approaches, address them from multiple methods perspectives or suggest alternative creative methods not covered below:

– Visual and performing arts

– Creative writing / lifewriting

– Music, arts and crafts

– Participatory, decolonising, activist and/or community-based methods

– Digital methods

– Reflective/autoethnographic methods

To apply, send proposals to wambookings@glos.ac.uk by April 30th, 2019.

For any additional information email Dr. Hannah Grust at hgrist@glos.ac.uk

CALL FOR STUDENT APPLICATIONS: GUSEGG 2019

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For the fifth consecutive year, ACT is sponsoring a module on ageing, communication and technologies as part of the Graz International Summer School Seggau (GUSEGG). The school, which welcomes professors and students from around the world, will be held from June 30 to July 13 2019 in Leibnitz, Austria.

This year, the module on aging will be taught by ACT Director Kim Sawchuk. ACT will partially fund up to five graduate students to attend the school, and will cover tuition and boarding costs. You can learn more about GUSEGG and this year’s school here. For more information about about ACT’s involvement, you can watch a great video “trailer” produced during the summer school in 2016.

This opportunity is open to ACT-affiliated students who have not had the chance to participate in the school. Interested students need to apply to ACT. Applications should be sent to application@actproject.ca by March 18, 2019 and should include:

1) a 500-word (max) letter on the student’s motivation to attend Graz International Summer School Seggau 2019 and why the topic of the lectures and seminar model is of value to them. The student should especially explain how their research fits within ACT and how they will benefit from courses in the module on ageing, communication and technologies.

2) A C.V.

3) The ACT student support form signed by a co-applicant or collaborator (the form is available here) OR a letter of reference written by an ACT co-applicant or collaborator.

Successful candidates will be asked to provide more information to GUSEGG, including academic transcripts and a copy of their passports.

Graduate Summer School – Beyond the Body: Recasting Aging

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From July 3 to 10 ACT collaborator engAGE: Concordia University’s Centre for Research on Aging will host its first intensive and experiential international graduate summer school. The title of the summer school is Beyond the Body: Recasting Aging.

Keynote speakers include Toni Calasanti (Virginia Tech), Paula Negron (Université de Montréal), Ros Jennings (University of Gloucestershire), Erin Lamb (Hiram College) and Barbara Marshall (Trent University). A small number of fellowships are available for international students who need financial assistance to attend the summer school. Visit the summer school website to learn more about the course outline and application process. The application deadline is April 15.

Questions can be directed at engage@concordia.ca

New Research Grant on Intelligent Personal Assistants

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Galit Nimrod and Yael Edan of Ben Gurion University of the Negev were awarded a research grant from the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology to study processes of assimilation of Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs) among older users. IPAs combine features of both service and companion robots, and have great potential to promote subjective wellbeing in old age. Applying the holistic approach to the study of human-robot interaction in later life, Nimrod and Edan will explore the extent to which IPAs indeed promote wellbeing in later life, the factors that constrain or alleviate processes of assimilation of IPAs, and whether processes of assimilation and contribution to wellbeing vary upon IPA’s type.

The study will combine knowledge and methods from both the social sciences and industrial engineering. Sixty community-dwelling individuals aged 75 years and over will be recruited and given an IPA for a period of three months. During this time, qualitative and quantitative measures will be used to assess use patterns, the outcomes resulting thereof and factors that constrain use. Results are expected to promote the existing body of knowledge regarding processes of assimilation of new technologies among older adults. In addition, the findings will be used to create a toolbox for technology developers and designers, that will guide adaption of existing technology to older people’ needs as well as development of designated technologies for the global aging population.

Shirley Curry Slays (Dragons)

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From behind two monitors, a custom-built computer and a high-quality keyboard and mouse, Shirley Curry says, “give me that soul of the dragon.” She has just fired an iron arrow into its hide. After weeks of preparing for this battle, the 82-year-old gamer is content with her victory.

Read more →

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 15: ACT Student Bursaries 2019

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The ACT Student Bursaries are awarded to students enrolled in master’s or doctoral programs in ACT partner universities, and who are conducting research on the intersections of ageing, communication and technologies as part of their thesis project. ACT will award up to four competitive bursaries per year: two for doctoral students ($2,000 CAD each) and two for master’s students ($1,000 CAD each).

All applications must be submitted to application@actproject.ca by the required due date of February 1, 2019. **EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 15, 2019**

Eligibility 

  • The student must be registered in a doctoral or master’s program in an ACT partner university.
  • The student’s candidacy must be supported by an ACT co-applicant or collaborator, who is affiliated with the student’s home university/ACT partner university and able to administer ACT funds to the student. However, the student does not necessarily need to be directly supervised by the supporting ACT co-applicant or collaborator.
  • The student must be registered in a program with a required thesis component.
  • The student’s thesis must fit directly within the mandate of ACT.
  • If in a PhD program, the student’s thesis proposal must have been approved or defended prior to applying to this bursary. If in a MA program, the student’s thesis proposal does not necessarily need to have been approved or defended before applying to this bursary.
  • Each student is only admissible for one ACT bursary per degree, and must not have received bursaries, scholarships, fellowships or stipends from ACT in the past (e.g., scholarship or project funding).
  • The student must not plan to have completed their thesis within six months following the bursary application deadline.

 

Submission

First, candidates must submit a single email with two attachments: the completed “ACT Student Bursaries Application Form,” and a Curriculum Vitae that provides an overview of the student’s accomplishments and research record. Second, the supporting ACT co-applicant or collaborator must send an email with two attachments: the completed “ACT Student Bursaries Support Form” and a letter of recommendation. If the supporting ACT co-applicant or collaborator is not the student’s thesis supervisor, then the student’s thesis supervisor can provide the letter of recommendation instead.

All documents must be emailed to application@actproject.ca by the appropriate due date. No late applications will be considered.

 

Obligations

Students: Successful applicants must commit to fulfilling a number of requirements. The student will be asked to work with the ACT team to share information on the project for reporting and communication purposes. This includes providing the necessary information to set up a project page on the ACT website, a biography and photo, and other information, as requested. The student must write an In Focus piece for the ACT website over the 12 months that follow the announcement of their award. Furthermore, the student will be required to acknowledge the support of ACT and its funder, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), in research outputs, including conference papers, workshops and poster presentations, publications, the final production of their thesis and any creative or media products of their research.

Supporting co-applicants and collaborators: By supporting an application, the co-applicant or collaborator must be able to recommend to ACT  that the student should be funded. The sponsoring co-applicant or collaborator must also be willing and able to facilitate the payment of the bursary by their institution using ACT funds; as such, they must be able to receive the funds from ACT via an institutional transfer.

 

Related Documents

ACT Student Bursaries February 2019 Call (Word document)
ACT Student Bursaries Application Form (Word document)
ACT Student Bursaries Support Form (Word document)

Ageing, the Digital and Everyday Life

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This short piece, written by Dr. Wendy Martin, serves as a follow-up to a one day seminar held at Brunel University on October 26, 2018. The seminar was organized by Wendy Martin and Paul Higgs (University College London) and was funded by ACT. 

Digital devices, information technologies and mediated systems of communication increasingly shape the social worlds of people in mid to later life.  While tired stereotypes of older people as uninterested or unskilled users of digital technologies have waned, concerns over a digital divide remain.  The increase in use of digital technologies as people grow older was the focus of the one-day seminar entitled ‘Ageing, the Digital and Everyday Life’ that took place in October 2018 at Brunel University London.

The presenters were an interdisciplinary and international group of academics and researchers from the arts, the social sciences and Science and Technology Studies (STS) whose work focuses on ageing, the digital and everyday life. The seminar provided an opportunity to examine and review the study of ageing, the digital and everyday life from a wide range of perspectives and to critically explore future challenges and possibilities. The seminar was very well attended by academics, doctoral students and the public and as the event was livestreamed there were further questions and dialogue via Twitter. The seminar led to stimulating and engaging debates amongst and between the speakers and audiences and was very positively evaluated.

The presentations are available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8nqSO89lEXivZ_JTuZVhhg/videos?disable_polymer=1

The seminar was organised by Dr Wendy Martin (Brunel University London) and Professor Paul Higgs (University College London) and was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)  international partnership ‘Ageing, Communication, Technologies (ACT): experiencing a digital world in later life’.

Vibrations

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ACT is supporting a unique, three-day symposium at Concordia. The symposium will bring together disabled artists from East London and Montreal to co-produce a suite of new digital artworks that explore sensorial relationships to the world through “vibrational” tactility. Learn more about the event here.